Just Once
by Kitt Chaos
Summary: A new Bat story based on and continuing the events in Insult of the Right Hand. Dracula is bored. Death is worried. 'Nuff said.
1. Default Chapter

Author's notes - 

Castlevania and all of Castlevania's characters mentioned in this story are the legal and intellectual property of Konami. The Playstation game, Castlevania, Symphony of the Night inspired the story below. 

There are a few references to D, from Vampire Hunter D. VHD is Mr. Kikuchi's legal and intellectual property. 

The 'arrow of slaying' mentioned in this story comes from my Dungeons and Dragons role-play gaming days. D&D was (probably still is) the legal and intellectual property of TSR games. 

This story builds on the concept that appeared in a previous story I was inspired to write, Insult of the Right Hand, especially the the final 'omake' chapter of that story. If you haven't read Insult but wish to read this story, that concept in a nutshell is that Alucard's familiar Bat is not only female, but in love with him (evidenced by the little hearts that appear over her head whenever Alucard assumes his bat form in the game). Further, in my story, Alucard bites Bat and drinks her blood, to change her from a mortal, natural animal into an immortal vampire bat. Though Alucard is unaware of it, Dracula, as the Lord of All Vampires, permitted and assisted in Bat's transformation. 

**Just Once - Chapter One**

**"Death is a friend. The true final enemy of a vampire is boredom." from The Book of Blood, Teachings of the Ancient God**

Dracula was bored. 

Bored, bored, bored! Ever attentive, his favorite hench-specter, Death, silently appeared at his side. 

"My lord?" Death breathed the unhealthy, loamy funk of the grave out into the room. 

"Atmospheric," Dracula commented, "but still boring!" 

He vaulted up from his chair and paced aimlessly about the chamber. 

"Let's raise Castlevania again. I want something to doooo!" 

Death sighed. It wasn't often Lord Dracula wound up in this mood, which was just as well. Death was always up for chaos and destruction, but Dracula, especially when he was bored, tended to throw the universal balance off kilter. 

"It's too soon, my lord," Death told him regretfully. A battle of wits with Alucard would settle Dracula's ennui nicely for a decade or two. It really was too bad that the eeD situation had taken Alucard's attention away from Castlevania's rising this century. Death still smarted from where D, the brother Alucard had sent in his place, had handily clobbered him. 

"I feel like meting out a little mayhem. Not a full-scale assault anywhere, and darkness knows I don't want to sire yet another child in yet another dimension for eeD to fixate on, but I'm bored!" Dracula flopped gracelessly into his chair and sulked. 

"I wanna do something with Alucard!" Dracula almost pouted. "I guess I can take a look in on how Bat's doing. I'm really pleased with how well her situation turned out. I wish I could give Alucard some grief and put her through her paces, now that she's a vampire bat! Are you certain it's too early for Castlevania? I'm soooo bored!" 

Death regarded Dracula. In the hierarchy of things, Dracula was indeed his superior, in a position of command over Death, but Death considered that he and Dracula were friends too. He knew Dracula wouldn't go on a killing spree, increasing his already overloaded schedule, but he didn't like to see Dracula depressed either. He knew how fast boredom led to depression in his vampire friend. 

Hmmm...vampire, vampire...Dracula WAS the lord of all things vampire... 

Somehow, though he had no skin to pull back from his teeth, Death grinned deeply. 

******** 

"What?!" Alucard was horrified. 

"Yes. We just found out about it. Is it useful?" Fairy replied. 

"No." 

"But...couldn't you use it on eeD? Wouldn't it help?" Fairy protested. 

"Perhaps not. He isn't really a vampire, or dhampir, but a reflection of one. It might not work on him. But my concern is that such a thing is too powerful to exist. An arrow that can instantly slay any vampire...such an item is too dangerous!" Alucard concluded. 

"Oh!" Fairy realized. "It could kill you?!" 

Alucard nodded. "Or D or even Dracula. Anything with vampire blood would be instantly destroyed from the slightest scratch," Alucard told her. 

"That is bad!" 

"So we had better go and destroy it somehow," Alucard concluded. 

"My contact in this dimension said it was in a keep not far from here." 

"eeD's been quiet. Now is as good a time as any to take care of this thing before too many creatures find out about it," Alucard decided. 

******** 

It had been ridiculously easy to enter the keep and find the central chamber where the arrow of vampire slaying was enshrined. There were almost no monsters to speak of guarding the keep, no hidden door or traps, in fact, almost no challenge at all. 

Alucard even had some relatively quiet time on the way to the chamber to ponder things. eeD was playing a game of hide and seek through the dimensions. Fairy and Demon either had, or could quickly cultivate, contacts in most dimensions they traveled and through these contacts gather information about eeD's activities. Sword was usually able to find martial training in each dimension for himself and Alucard. Alucard himself tried to find any children of Dracula, brothers or sisters, to see if they could help discern what eeD's master plan was. He could tell there was a master plan. He just didn't know what its nefarious purpose was. 

Since three of his familiars were busy on his behalf in each dimension they traveled to, Alucard found himself with Ghost and Bat at his side most often. The lack of any ability to really communicate with Ghost, coupled with the fact that Ghost usually wandered off if Alucard assumed his useful and stealthy bat form, made Bat his most constant companion. 

Alucard didn't mind. Somehow, in each dimension they went to, Bat was still able to summon local bats to fly and fight with them whenever Alucard was in his bat form. She'd become a formidable guard, not allowing anything near her "Master Bat" in any aspect. Ever since he'd transformed her, Bat had been becoming more and more intelligent and more skilled in the bat powers Alucard was able to share with her. 

He especially liked that she retained her sweet nature despite the changes in her. She never got in his way, but she flew as close as possible to him whenever he was her "Master Bat". He was touched and amused to notice she flew closer to him while he was in his dhampir form too. He'd been shocked when he learned that Bat thought of him as a bat who could assume human form, rather than the way he really was. Her innocent, but fundamental, misperception about his nature was rather adorable actually. 

He wondered sometimes if his other familiars were upset that he spent more time with her than any of them. But, he told himself, most of the time they were unavailable anyway, busy with finding things out for him. 

"Bat, when you are with the others in the dimension where you go to wait for a summons, do you...well, what do you do? Do you, all of you, talk with each other?" Alucard asked as they flew down an empty corridor. 

"Of course, Master Bat. You are the most important person in our lives, so we usually discuss how best to help you!" Alucard would have smiled at her ardent answer, if he were able to smile in his bat form. 

"The others...do they ever get upset or say anything about how I summon you more than any of them?" 

"Are you asking if they are jealous?" Bat asked with a giggle. 

Alucard was glad that as a bat he couldn't blush. Bat's intelligence had been increasing. He kept forgetting that! Maybe it was because he got thrown off by her calling him "Master Bat". Of all his familiars, she was the only one who didn't truly understand his nature. 

"I guess I am. I enjoy your company so much that I call on you most often, but I am friends with Fairy, Sword, Demon and Ghost too. I don't want them to feel unappreciated." 

"They don't. Of course they like it when you summon them too, but Demon usually finds gremlins, imps or other demons to do things with, Fairy is always talking with others eldritch beings about magic, Sword has lots of living weapon friends to fight with and Ghost tends to disappear for days at a time. They have all kinds of things to do! Oh! Though of course they would stop everything and respond instantly if you summoned them!" Bat rushed to tell him. 

Alucard found he would have smiled again if he were in his dhampir form. Funny how he found himself either smiling or wanting to smile so much more than he used to. 

As it was, his Force of Echo 'voice' let Bat know he was amused at her quick defense of her friends. 

"What do you do? When you are there?" Alucard asked. 

"Oh, I can feed there. There are insects and such for me to eat. Sometimes Fairy will spend time talking with me, if she's not with you or off learning things about magic. Mostly I just sleep. And wait," Bat admitted. 

"There aren't any bats for you to spend time with there?" Alucard asked. 

"There are...but well...there's not much to talk about with them. They are concerned with food and finding caves to live in and things like that," Bat told him. 

"And such mundane things don't interest you much anymore," Alucard realized. 

"Not much," Bat admitted shyly. 

Alucard stopped, hovered and turned toward her. "Are you lonely?" 

"Sometimes. Never when I'm with you though!" she declared. 

Her truthful answer made Alucard realize that her entire existence was wrapped up around him. From what she had said, Fairy, Demon and Sword had activities and lives separate from their duty to him as his familiars. Because of what he had done to her, Bat no longer did. 

"I'm sorry," Alucard said quietly. 

"For what?" 

"Changing you so that you really can't be anything except my familiar. Making it so other bats are too simple for you," Alucard wasn't sure he could explain what he was sorry for to Bat. She might not understand. 

"It's okay," she replied softly. "As long as I can still help you, I don't mind." 

"If you get lonely, and one of the other familiars isn't with me, you can just come if you want." 

"Really? I wouldn't be a bother to you?" 

"No, Bat. You are never a bother to me!" 

"I'd like that," she admitted shyly. 

-------------   
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get! 

stargarde@stargarde.com   



	2. Chapter Two

**Just Once - Chapter Two**

**"Some think vampires don't need to concern themselves with Time. We do. After all, we have so much more of it to deal with." from The Book of Blood, Teachings of the Ancient God**

Didn't Master Bat realize?! The danger was not in the thing in the middle of the room, but in something in one of the walls. She tried to pinpoint exactly where it was, so she could tell him. It was strange, almost as if it were moving behind the wall. Alucard reached down to pick up the blood-red arrow. The tile it was on shifted, sinking into the base. 

Still trying to find exactly where she sensed something dark and scary, she hovered on quiet wings. The feeling settled in one place, right behind Master Bat! 

"Alucard!" she cried out, beating her wings as fast as she could to throw herself between her master and the black, evil thing speeding so fast toward his unprotected back. 

Alucard turned at his name just in time to see the arrow, the real arrow of vampire slaying, piercing through Bat's heart. 

She vanished into dust taking the arrow into nothingness with her. 

"BAT!" Alucard screamed. Frantically he pulled one of his other familiar cards out, summoning Fairy to his side. 

"Fairy! Do something! Bat was...! Bat was...!" 

"I can't!" Fairy cried out, tears streaming from her eyes. "I can't do anything to help a familiar!" 

Alucard looked in horror at the small pile of black dust that was all that was left of Bat. He'd been so concerned when Fairy had told him that she was mortal, and concerned in an entirely different way when Fairy told him Bat was in love with him. Alucard, cursed by the blood of his birth, had vowed to let his blood die with him. He had resolved to never love. Maria Reynard...he'd seen love in her eyes. He's seen interest, if not love, in the eyes of other women too. He'd wondered if it would truly be so bad if he weakened from his vow. His own mother had loved Dracula, even to the day she had died. Alucard contented himself with milder forms of love. They'd never bring the ecstasy of passion, or the soul-altering power of true love, but they comforted him just the same. After all, he had lived in his half life, waiting for Castlevania to rise and then dealing with it, out of love for the humans who lived near the castle. A remote, unrecognized, unreturned love, but love nonetheless. 

And D. His brother, with whom no words needed to be shared to know they bore the same pain of destiny. Alucard's already tangled feelings about Dracula, his father, snarled even more when he considered that D was also Dracula's son. That D was as he was, protecting humans at the cost of his own happiness, not only gave Alucard the comfort of knowing he wasn't absolutely alone, but also seemed to show that Dracula was not quite the completely evil being Alucard thought. 

But his familiars. They were five entities with whom Alucard could freely admit there was affection and love. They knew his darkest secret already, so he didn't have to hide it from them, or 'protect' them from it. With his familiars, he allowed himself to smile, or even laugh, enjoying the freedom of simply being himself. And if he tweaked Demon's tail affectionately, or invited Bat or Fairy to ride on his shoulder, what was the harm in that? 

He'd been worried when Fairy had told him of Bat's feelings for him. It had cast all of Bat's actions into a new light. Alucard had been relieved when he realized that Bat's intellect was only slightly higher than that of a normal bat, as it made her loyalty and affection more like that of a cherished pet. The undemanding love of a natural creature he could easily bear. Such a love required no return. 

He hadn't expected her intelligence to increase with the change he'd made in her, siring her to become vampire bat. But she had behaved as before, not troubling him at all or getting in his way with her feelings for him. Alucard found himself anticipating the signs of her attraction, the restrained little dash to fly closer whenever he assumed his bat form, and her slight confusion whenever he abandoned it. Slowly, that confusion had disappeared whenever he assumed his true form. Gradually, she started flying closer to him whenever he was a dhampir too. He'd fallen into the habit of patting his shoulder, inviting her to perch if he were just walking somewhere and not anticipating needing to fight. She never missed the opportunity to obey that command. Every once in a while she'd stroke her head along his cheek. 

"She can't be gone!" Alucard slumped to his knees next to the pile of dust that had been Bat. "Fairy...I think I...love her!" 

"I know," Fairy said calmly. "I wish you had realized it sooner." 

"But...I am...she is...!" 

Fairy smiled and floated closer to hover just before his anguished eyes. 

"You are a dhampir; she is a bat. Because of you, she is a vampire bat, changed from what she was, made much more than just a natural animal." 

"All of us love you, Master Alucard. Not only because you found our cards and made us your familiars, but also...just because. You are nice and kind and honorable. Demon won't admit it, but even he likes that. Of all of us though, only Bat was like you, sharing a similar form. She loved you before. Once she became even more like you, that love deepened." 

"I think...every creature wants to be loved and wants to matter to some one person more than any other in all the world. Even vampire bats and even dhampirs. Even you, Master Alucard." 

"Is it so terrible that you found a response to Bat's affection in your own heart?" 

Alucard considered what Fairy had asked. Is that what it was? Was he only responding to Bat's affection? But...he had liked simply talking with her, once Bat had found a way to talk to him. Maybe there was something to how she just loved him without ever asking for anything in return. Maybe he was so concerned about not falling in love with a human woman he never considered he could fall in love with something else. True, she had once been only a natural animal, little more than a pet, but he himself had made her more. Without even knowing it, without planning it, without any sort of machination or artifice, Bat had scaled the wall of his stubbornness, breached the adamant keep of his resolve and successfully besieged his heart. 

"No, Fairy. What is terrible is that I didn't realize it in time to tell her," Alucard looked down in horrified sadness at Bat's pathetic remains. The fact that she had died protecting him was a final irony not lost on Alucard either. 

"Time...such an interesting concept," a deep, sepulchral voice commented. 

Alucard lithely vaulted to his feet and whirled. Death floated behind him. 

"Why are you here?!" Alucard demanded. 

"That little pile of dust. If you'd left her alone, I wouldn't have to trouble myself to collect her, but she's not just a simple animal any longer. Therefore, I have to be involved. It's a bother really. I don't know why you couldn't leave things well enough alone!" Death groused. 

"She has...a soul?!" Alucard demanded in stunned amazement. 

"Soul, spirit, seed of cosmic energy...whatever you want to call it, she's not just a beast to pass easily into the void. Such trouble you cause me!" 

Death gestured toward the pile of dust. A mist of velvety blackness rose from it and hovered. It darted over toward Alucard. There was no sound, there wasn't even her Force of Echo 'voice', but Alucard still knew...this was the undying essence of Bat. The comforting darkness of a warm summer night, the quiet darkness of his sanctuary's coffin and the gentle darkness of Bat's own soft, shadowy wings somehow brushed up against his soul. 

"Bat...!" her common name was a tortured syllable wrung from his deepest emotions. 

"Oh, really?!" Death crowed. "Proud Alucard of the unassailable heart brought to heel by the creature he himself made?! How Pygmalion of you!" Death gestured and the hazy mist of Bat's soul responded, tearing itself reluctantly away from Alucard and hovering above Death's hand. Bat's soul resolved into a black globe that Death hefted within his skeletal grasp. 

"Tease me all you want," Alucard told Death in a thickened tone. "But don't torment her. What purpose is there in claiming her soul?" 

"Torment? Even after all this time, you don't understand my purpose. I don't torment, I merely usher souls to their final destination. Either unending punishment, for those who deserve it, or ultimate reward. As for purpose, I never ask. It is not my place to trouble the powers of the universe with such philosophical questions," Death told him. 

"Please..." Alucard's voice was ragged, "Leave her with me. Even as...just a soul. Surely the universe won't care what happens to the soul of one vampire bat." 

"_Her_ soul? It cares more than you know! Sorry, ducky, no can do!" 

"Please!" Alucard fell to his knees, pleading with Death. Death chuckled to see Alucard's unabashed supplication. 

"Well, well, well!" Death floated all around Alucard looking down on him in satisfaction. "Who knew this could be so rewarding to me? Sometimes this job does have its perks! To see you this way, what an unexpected treat!" Death crowed. 

"I'll tell you what. I'll give you a challenge: enter my castle, defeat the monsters in my dungeon, and find the chamber I place her in before her remains trickle through my hourglass," Death gestured. Bat's dust floated into the air and Death's Hourglass materialized around it. The connected double-drop chambers were clearest crystal, but the design was predictably morbid. The three pillars supporting the hollow chambers were crafted of bone. 

Death hefted the gruesome thing to gaze with glowing, attentive sockets at the upper crystal chamber to make certain it was empty before theatrically turning the instrument over. The fine black dust of Bat's mortal remains acted as the sand, flowing from the top chamber to the bottom through the narrow neck. 

"Find and stop this before all of her dust runs through and I'll release her soul to you," Death promised. "If you are late, if all of her dust has trickled to the bottom chamber, the power interested in her claims her instead. Agreed?" 

"Agreed," Alucard regained his feet. "But where...?" 

Death vanished, taking Bat's soul and the hourglass holding her remains with him. 

"I'll treat you fairly and set you in the starting place," Death's voice spoke aloud. Alucard and Fairy disappeared. 

******** 

Alucard opened his eyes to find himself standing in the courtyard of a keep of some kind. The portcullis behind him was closed and the gate to the keep itself yawned open before him. 

"A fly in Death's web..." Alucard mused aloud. Hearing no reply he looked around. Fairy was gone. Alarmed, Alucard reached into the easily accessible, hidden pocket in his cloak for his familiar cards. He fanned them out. Only Bat's card had remained the same. Each of the rest of them had been altered. Fairy's card depicted not only her gossamer winged form, but a bat hovering behind her as well. Puzzled, Alucard resummoned Fairy. 

"Master, I'll always help you!" Fairy greeted as she materialized and floated down to attend to him. 

"Eeep!" she squealed, for a bat floated down just after her. Fairy darted around Alucard, putting him between her and this unexpected creature. Alucard absently handed Fairy her card while he examined the bat. 

This one, unlike his own Bat, was a natural creature. It appeared as any common bat, leathery black wings and furry body, flapping to remain in the air in front of him. From force of habit, Alucard tapped his shoulder. The bat continued flapping, showing no interest at all in coming closer to Alucard. 

"Who are you?" Alucard asked, using the Force of Echo voice that let him speak so clearly with Bat. There was no reply. 

"Fairy...any ideas?" Alucard finally asked. 

"This is strange," she observed, returning her altered familiar card to her master. "It looks as though someone wants you to have a bat with you whenever you summon me." 

"Not just you, all the cards now show a bat on them," Alucard showed her. "And with all that's happening, I'd say it's Death who put it there." 

"He's just a regular bat though," Fairy told him, glancing at the strange new familiar. "Why would Death force you to have a bat with you at all times now?" 

"I have no idea." 

-------------   
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get! 

stargarde@stargarde.com   



	3. Chapter Three

**Just Once - Chapter Three**

**"Pay attention to humans and the lesser creatures. You never know when they will do something...interesting." from The Book of Blood, Teachings of the Ancient God**

"Alucard!" she cried out, beating her wings as fast as she could to throw herself between her master and the black, evil thing speeding so fast toward his unprotected back. Though she had judged herself to be too far away, somehow she made it in time to get between Alucard and the arrow of vampire slaying to take the arrow herself. 

It sliced into her bringing an agony the likes of which she had never borne before. She felt as every part of her, wings from sides, head from neck, legs from torso, even skin from muscle, sinew from bone and thought from form was violently ripped apart. The terrifying darkness she had passed through before, twice, rush forward to claim her. This time it wasn't a gentle slide from the arms of her master into a quiet sanctuary. It was not even the matter of fact re-ushering into life she'd experienced in her awakening as a vampire bat. 

No, this time the darkness was like a ravening beast, slathering greedily for her body, her life, her very self. It leaped forward to claim her. 

"Master Bat...Alucard...so glad...you didn't die... I love you...always..." Bat's final thoughts in life were of her Master Bat before her consciousness snuffed out. 

******** 

She was nothing. No, she was in nothing. Nothing surrounded her, trying to overwhelm her. She summoned a memory of Alucard's eyes to set between herself and the nothing. His beautiful grey eyes, holding such a mild light, or his soft red ones with a fiercer glow. It didn't matter. She knew they were his and somehow, if she just believed in him enough, if she placed her trust in him, if she could only love him enough, the memory of his eyes would keep the terrifying darkness from ever touching her. 

She might never be free of the darkness. She might exist forever in the nothing. But she would love him in that forever. Maybe, if her love were strong enough, it could reach out to where she could no longer go and somehow, in some way, still help her Master Bat. She hoped so. 

The memory of his eyes when he asked her earlier if she was lonely flashed through her mind. She only thought she was lonely before. This, this nothing existence, cut off completely from him, from light, from form, from life was truly lonely. 

"The memories will comfort me," she thought to herself. "I know he lives and that...that is enough." 

The eyes turned toward her. Alucard's eyes! They were...they were _looking_ at her! This was no memory, no conjuring of her mind, somehow, in some way, her wonderful, amazing Master Bat was _seeing_ her! Even as she was now, trapped in a nothing place. She tried to comfort the stricken look in those beautiful eyes. 

"BAT...!" he called, seemingly from the depths of his own soul. Did he yet care for her, now that she was gone from him?! 

"Oh, really?! Proud Alucard of the unassailable heart brought to heel by the creature he himself made?! How Pygmalion of you!" The blackness surrounding and trying to devour her was strongest in the being now taunting her Master Bat. He held the darkness within his very self. Bat knew, one touch of that darkness and all that she was, even the pathetically reduced thing she had become now, all of her thoughts and emotions, all of her feelings for Fairy and her other friends, maybe even all of her love for Alucard would be gone. She shrank instinctively from the oblivion of Death. 

He gestured arrogantly and she responded, unable to resist the commands of Death, now that she was in his dominion. She tried to somehow anchor herself in Alucard to no avail. The force of Death's power made her collapse in on herself, trying to protect those things most important to her in the core of what she had become. She found herself floating just above his skeletal hand. She knew, just one touch and she would be destroyed. Or worse. She didn't dare try to do anything, but somehow, though she had no eyes, watch Death and make certain she didn't displease him enough to snuff her out. If he should close his hand! 

"Tease me all you want." Though she was formless, Bat winced somehow to hear how tortured Alucard's voice was. "But don't torment her. What purpose is there in claiming her soul?" 

"'Torment'?" Death echoed. "Even after all this time, you don't understand my purpose. I don't torment, I merely usher souls to their final destination. Either unending punishment, for those who deserve it, or ultimate reward. As for purpose, I never ask. It is not my place to trouble the powers of the universe with such philosophical questions," Death told Alucard. 'Powers of the universe'? Bat wondered what her final destination was to be. How could it be ultimate reward if she couldn't be with Master Bat anymore?! 

"Please..." Alucard's voice was ragged, "Leave her with me. Even as...just a soul. Surely the universe won't care what happens to the soul of one vampire bat." 

He'd want her this way?! Even if she could do nothing to help him?! Maybe that would be her ultimate reward. She didn't care what happened to her, it didn't matter to her if she had form or not, if she could always be with him. 

"_Her_ soul? It cares more than you know! Sorry, ducky, no can do!" 

Oh. It was the unending punishment for her after all. 

"Please!" Alucard fell to his knees, pleading with Death. Death chuckled to see Alucard's unabashed supplication. If she weren't already dead, Bat felt as though part of her would have shriveled and died to see her Master Bat begging so hard on her behalf. She wasn't worth it that he should force himself to beg for her! 

"Well, well, well!" Death floated all around Alucard looking down on him in satisfaction. "Who knew this could be so rewarding to me? Sometimes this job has its perks! To see you this way, what an unexpected treat!" Death crowed. The core of Bat's being cringed that her master was accepting such cruel teasing to try to save her. 

"I'll tell you what. I'll give you a challenge: enter my castle, defeat the monsters in my keep, and find the chamber I place her in before her remains trickle through my hourglass," Death gestured. Bat's dust floated into the air and Death's Hourglass materialized around it. Bat was horrified to watch the dust that had been her body imprisoned in a cage of crystal and bone. Death turned his hourglass and pulled by gravity, the dust started to flow. 

"Find and stop this before all of her dust runs through and I'll release her soul to you," Death promised. "If you are late, if all of her dust has trickled to the bottom chamber, the power interested in her claims her soul instead. Agreed?" 

"Agreed," Alucard got to his feet. "But where...?" 

Alucard, Fairy and the chamber they were in, disappeared. 

A new chamber formed around her. Death floated over and placed the evil hourglass trapping part of her on the lid of the marble coffin in the center of the room. Bat watched at how the dust of her remains, along with the time Alucard had to rescue her, slid swiftly through the glass. Maybe she could slow it somehow, as it was really her, and buy Alucard some more time, if she concentrated enough... 

"None of that now!" Death warned her, bringing his bony fingers closer to her vulnerable soul. She stopped, terrified of Death's ultimate power to destroy her. 

"That's better. I've no idea if he will succeed or not. It's all a matter of Time now," Death told her. "Nothing says this waiting must be unpleasant though." Death set her soul to float about the hourglass and stepped back to admire the effect. 

"Pretty!" he declared. "In the normal way of things you wouldn't even be aware of this last gamble to save you. I should have known you would be different! I could close your consciousness down again, but why should I expend the energy? Alucard might fail, sending you to your final accounting anyway. I know you fancy you love him, so I'll let you watch his efforts on your behalf instead." 

Death airily waved his skeletal hand in the direction of Bat's soul globe as he sat down upon an ornate, but macabre throne of bone. 

And there he was, an image of Master Bat, taking shape before her! 

Bat longed to fly to him, to fly alongside him again, so she could protect him as he found himself at the beginning of a new castle. Where was Fairy?! Surely she hadn't abandoned Master Bat now! 

Oh. Somehow Death had banished Fairy. Alucard was summoning her with the familiar card now... 

WHAT was this?! WHO the hell was that bat and WHAT was it doing near HER Master Bat?! Bat saw red as fury filled her soul. 

Death turned his head in surprise as blood-red light filled the crypt. It issued from Bat's soul globe. 

"Heh, heh, heh! If this doesn't alleviate _his_ boredom, nothing will!" Death laughed. He settled in to watch the double drama unfolding before him, the one in his spell showing Alucard's adventures in his castle and the one in his crypt as Bat witnessed and responded to those adventures too. 

It had been years since Death had been so highly amused. 

******** 

Bat couldn't sustain her upset. Slowly, her soul globe resumed it's normal soft black glow. Alucard was forced to have the new bat with him at all times. She'd been livid that Alucard had invited the interloper to sit on his shoulder before she realized that it was such an automatic action for Alucard that he didn't even know that he'd done it. Whenever he saw black bat wings nearby, Alucard's first reaction was to tap his shoulder. In a way, it was a compliment to her that Alucard didn't even realize he was doing it. 

Not that the new bat responded as Bat did. It just flapped there in the air, staring at Alucard. Bat was relieved that the new bat didn't dash closer to Master Bat when Alucard finally assumed his own, true, bat form. Only then did she think to look and confirm that the new bat was male. Again, the thought comforted her. If she was to be replaced, if Alucard was to have a new bat familiar, she was glad her replacement wasn't female. She knew it was selfish, and that her wishes didn't matter. It was nice to know that at least the memory of how she'd been might exist in Master Bat's mind for a while. The new bat certainly didn't behave as she had! 

She could tell that Master Bat noticed. His eyes held a softly confused look in them. She could tell that even though there was a bat hovering near him, Master Bat knew it wasn't her. He seemed a little lost, almost as if he missed her, as he made his way through the dangerous rooms of the castle. 

Bat did have to feel gratitude for the interloper bat though. After only a few fights, the new bat caught on, even as she had so very long ago, that to protect the tall man was a good thing to do. Bat reluctantly admitted the new bat's attacks were powerfully effective too. She couldn't help but compare them to the attacks she had been able to use when she first became Master Bat's familiar. The new bat's attacks were much more effective than her first ones had been. She wondered if that was because Alucard himself was stronger now. A starter bat, such as what she had been, would be more of a hindrance than a help now to him she supposed. Look! The new bat already had Breath of Fire! 

Oh! Wouldn't it be just awful if Master Bat fought his way to the chamber in time, won her soul back and decided he didn't want her after all, since his new bat familiar was so much better than she was?! Maybe that was why Death was letting her see this! 

But there! The fight was over and the new bat returned to fly behind Master Bat again. Bat could see the look in his eyes, one of intense longing, when he unconsciously tapped his shoulder again and the new bat didn't respond. 

******** 

"I really miss her," Master Bat said aloud. 

"Then hurry up so you can rescue her!" Fairy snapped, floating down from her place of safety now that the fight was over. 

"Why force me to have a new bat?" Alucard wondered for the tenth time. "Surely Death doesn't think he can change my mind about Bat!" 

"Let's just save her and worry about that later!" Fairy urged. 

"You're right!" Alucard agreed, before sprinting through the cleared chamber. At least the new bat kept up and didn't slow him down. 

Bat watched Alucard's image and listened raptly to his words in Death's spell while Death watched Bat. 

Reduced to only her essential being as she was, Bat found herself pondering only the most important things. She didn't like that a bat other than herself was helping her Master Bat. But, if the alternative was for him to have no help at all, she was relieved that he had that help. Alucard might never realize it, but Bat could see for herself that she had been important to him. It was in his mannerisms. It was in his tremendous effort to save her. It was in his beautiful eyes. 

Her own love for him bloomed anew. She longed to fly under his wing again. She ached to sit on his shoulder. It had been a while since she 'accidentally' tangled herself in his hair. That was one of her favorite things to do, as Alucard always laughed, a sound she loved to hear, and it always took him a few minutes of gentle handling to get her out his hair again. Truth be told, the silky prison of his silver locks was one of her favorite places in the world. If not for how delightful it was to have Alucard free her, she'd resist him and stay tangled in his hair! She wished, she wished, that...just once...she could...she could be... 

She refused to clarify her wish, pushing it abruptly away to deny any acknowledgment of it. 

"Even if Master Bat saves me, such is not for me," she told herself severely. Death smiled. 

Bat continued to watch, unwilling to let even the least of Alucard's actions escape her ardent attention. 

******** 

Bat's feelings had never varied so much before! Her love for Master Bat, Alucard, was as strong as ever. She wondered if perhaps it had grown even stronger. She could see in numerous, tiny ways that he missed her. He actually missed her! He was pushing himself so hard to try to rescue her. Fairy warned him several times to be more careful, that she had used up many of the healing items already since Alucard was behaving so recklessly. The new bat had grown tremendously in skill, sometimes taking two attacks before Alucard even entered a new room. Bat was reluctantly impressed by that. She ached to see Master Bat striving so hard, taking chances he never would have taken to try to find the chamber she was in quicker, to find her and rescue her in time. 

She wanted to be with him, but...she'd never want him to hurt himself for her. Ever! 

"Quite a show, eh?" Death asked. "But such little sand remains." Death glanced at the hourglass the contents of which Bat could no longer see from her spot floating above it. "He's close, though. I'd say it's...fifty-fifty he gets here in time." 

Alucard turned a corner and ran at full speed down the corridor. 

"Oh? That's the corridor outside this chamber. It will be very close!" 

Death rose up from the bone throne he reclined in to peer at the sand in the hourglass under Bat's soul. His sockets glowed as he watched the last of the sand trickle through the neck of the glass. 

"Time," Death called it softly. "I'm sorry, Bat. Alucard failed." 

The door to the crypt burst open. Alucard stood on the threshold, dragging great gasping breaths of air into his lungs. 

"Bat...?!" 

"You were close, Alucard. But you are too late," Death told him. 

"NO!" Alucard dashed into the room, evidently seeking to take Bat's soul from Death bodily. Death caught him around the neck with one hand and effortlessly hefted him up until his feet left the floor. 

"Do not try me in my own crypt, child." Death warned him softly. "Or do you forget I can claim your soul as well?" 

"You've lost. Concede her now to me, to her destiny, as you agreed," Death demanded. 

"Bat...! I'm so...sorry!" Alucard choked out against the force crushing against his windpipe. 

"Do...you...concede?!" Death shook Alucard at each word for emphasis. Unable to speak, Alucard nodded tightly. 

"Good," Death placed Alucard on his feet again. "I didn't want to have to take your soul also!" 

"Good thing too. If you had manhandled him one minute more I would have stopped you," a new voice added. Alucard recognized the voice. He heard it every time he had to conquer Castlevania's master. He heard it taunting him in his dreams. It was the voice of his father. 

Strange that he would not notice that his father was here! He turned, wondering where Dracula was hiding. Bat's soul floated above the hourglass containing the dust of her remains. Other than her, only Death, himself, Fairy and the bat Death had saddled him with met his eyes. Alucard winced. He hoped his father hadn't found a way to become invisible! It was hard enough to deal with Dracula in his mist form! 

The strange bat who had appeared with Fairy, evidently taking Bat's place, the bat who had protected him by attacking monsters during his heedless, desperately headlong dash through Death's Castle to save Bat's soul, flapped its wings, growing first to the size of the biggest, indeed the king of all vampire bats, and finally into his father's vampire form. 

"Alucard," Dracula stepped up and embraced him warmly before Alucard fully realized what was happening. "That was fun! I greatly enjoyed serving as your familiar!" Dracula smiled deeply, baring his fangs in his pleasure. 

"Ah, Death! You know me so well! What a wonderful diversion this has been for me!" Death inclined his head acknowledging the compliment. 

"And what a nice, unexpected present too!" Dracula stepped forward to pluck Bat's soul globe possessively from the air. "What a pretty little treasure for me!" 

"WHAT?!" Alucard demanded. 

"Don't you know? Dracula is the only power that would have an interest in Bat's soul," Death told him. "You lost, so now Bat's soul belongs to Lord Dracula!" 

-------------   
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get! 

stargarde@stargarde.com   



	4. Chapter Four

**Just Once - Chapter Four**

**"Helpful hint: Beauty greatly alleviates boredom. Seek the finer things." from The Book of Blood, Teachings of the Ancient God**

Dracula turned his hand this way and that, admiring the black sphere Death had crafted of Bat's soul. 

"Beautiful," he commented, glancing up to meet Alucard's eyes. "But why do you want it? What use have you for this bauble?" 

"She isn't a bauble!" Alucard cried out. "Don't...don't..." 

Dracula waited patiently for Alucard to sort out his thoughts. 

"Whatever you are going to do with her...Father, if there's any shred of compassion in you, make it quick. And don't hurt her," Alucard finally begged. Both of Dracula's eyebrows lifted at that. 

"Really? What will you do for me in return?" Dracula asked playfully. "Any soul is unique, but hers especially so. She became a vampire bat in a decidedly unusual way! With her soul I could craft another Soul of Bat amulet like yours and give it to D. I sense I could make a relic from her soul that would allow someone to summon a hoard of bats to do their bidding. That would be quite useful! Both processes are quite painful, I regret to inform you. They destroy the mentality of the original creature. Bat, as you know her, would be well and truly gone if I were to use her soul in such a way. So what price are you willing to pay to entice me to give in to your request?" 

Alucard remained silent, overwhelmed by the playfully callous attitude of his father toward the one... 

...the one he admitted had come to mean so much to him. 

"What have you to barter with, Alucard? You could let me raise Castlevania once without your interference. Or perhaps serve as my personal minion for a hundred years, say?" Dracula suggested. 

The true horror was laid out before him. To save Bat's soul from the torment his father threatened, Alucard would have to abandon the people he cared for to his father's whims. Or worse yet, perhaps harm them directly as one of his father's many servants...or slaves. This was a situation that had no lesser evils to choose. Bat was only a single being, Alucard knew he should let his father do whatever he wanted to her, even if it meant she was agonizingly tortured before she was destroyed utterly. 

It hadn't happened for well over a century. A tear trickled down Alucard's cheek. 

"Anything," Alucard told his father. "I'll do anything you want...if you don't hurt her." 

"Anything..." Dracula repeated, gazing into the distance just over Alucard's head with an expression of triumph. "Anything I want..." 

He brought his gaze down and focused it on Alucard's tormented eyes. 

"Then listen. Castlevania serves a purpose, which you have yet to comprehend. Each rising makes Castlevania stronger than the one before. You would never be able to beat Castlevania, or me, with just your own skills, as formidable as they are," Dracula told him. 

"So from the beginning, five were chosen to aid you. They too grow stronger and learn more at each rising. Even as you do. Each time, you are just...strong...enough...to win." 

Alucard wondered why Dracula was telling him this. Did Dracula want him to fight him in Castlevania or not? 

"You must learn Castlevania's true purpose on your own, my boy. But to serve that purpose, I selected the five familiars who serve you. And when you bit Bat in your attempt to make her immortal, I helped to bring that about too. I could no more hurt her..." Dracula interrupted himself. 

"I guess you could say I've adopted her. She is like a step-child to me," He admitted honestly. 

"Yes, Alucard, you can have Bat back. I'm not going to harm her, no matter how many unique and powerful items I could make from her soul. There is a price you must pay for me to restore her, though. No matter what, no matter how reluctant you might be, you must truly fight against me when Castlevania rises. If you do not, I will be forced to kill you. If you lose, I will lay waste to the land around Castlevania and bring death and devastation to the humans who live there. When Castlevania rises, I am truly the demonic vampire lord of humans' worst nightmares and you are the only one who can protect them and defeat me." 

"Bat herself must forfeit something too," Dracula continued softly, looking again at the globe of Bat's soul in his hand. 

"Forfeit?" Alucard asked. He didn't want her to lose anything! What if Dracula demanded her immortality? Or took her Force of Echo voice away? She and Alucard wouldn't be able to speak with one another! 

"Let's see what her most deeply held treasure is..." Dracula mused looking down at her soul. Pure white began to glow brightly from the center of the globe. He smiled rather gently. "Predictably, it's her love for you. Let's leave that strictly alone," he decided. 

"What about her fondest, most secret wish..." The glow dimmed just a little. Dracula gazed into her globe, evidently directly reading her wish. 

"Ah!" there was a note of satisfaction in his voice. "That will do nicely for a forfeit!" 

"What?" Alucard demanded. "What are you going to do? Take her fondest wish away?" 

Dracula looked up triumphantly into Alucard's eyes. His lips twisted into a cruel smile. 

"This is such fun!" Dracula teased. "No, Alucard, Bat hopes you never find out about her secret wish. So that is her forfeit. I strip her protection away so that you can see it for yourself. Dealing with it is her forfeit, for the wish she would hide from you forever will now be revealed as I grant it!" 

Dracula lifted her soul globe up dramatically. Alucard wondered if his father was going to smash it on the ground. Instead, Dracula brought it back down, wrapping his arms around it almost as if he were embracing Bat's soul. The globe broke, black shards sparkling as they scattered and disappeared. The soul that had been contained in that globe glowed a soft black. Dracula held Bat's soul within his arms as his power touched her and changed her. 

Her soul writhed. Black, the same black as her wings, flowed down almost to the ground. Alucard stared, not comprehending what his eyes were seeing. Was her soul melting? There was white too. There wasn't anything white about Bat! And she seemed large, much larger than even her vampire bat form. Was Dracula somehow stretching her out of shape? What was happening? What horror was Dracula inflicting upon her?! 

"There!" Dracula's voice was self-congratulatory. 

A sound of pure loveliness erupted into the room. Entranced by it, Alucard at first didn't notice that it was actually the voice of a deeply-felt distress. The strange black shape in Dracula's arms made as if to burrow into Dracula's cloak to get away from Alucard. 

"None of that, my dear!" Dracula remonstrated. Though she struggled to stay hidden, Dracula put both hands upon Bat's soul and pushed her away from him. "Your secret wish, the one you wanted most to hide from your Master Bat, is wrest from its hiding place in your heart! If you want to live again at Alucard's side, as his familiar, this is the price you must pay!" 

The struggle ceased. There was something of a slumping motion that reminded Alucard of how Bat would huddle within her wings whenever she was sad. He longed to comfort her, to let her know no matter what her secret wish showed him, he'd never think worse of her for it. He realized that though he had discovered it himself, he had yet to tell Bat that he loved her. And not in the overly careful way he had told her once before, letting her know that he cared for her only because she was one of his familiars. Somehow he had completely fallen in love with her. He had yet to tell her that. 

"Of course, if you'd prefer to stay with me the way you are now, I'd have no objections at all!" Dracula's voice had become a throaty purr. 

A little white fist appeared from the blackness and smacked Dracula in the center of his chest. Dracula laughed. Alucard's eyes widened as he realized... 

Bat's soul wore a human, female form. The blackness that had confused his eyes was the long ebony spill of her hair. The whiteness was the human skin she'd been given. This was her secret wish?! 

Now that she was no longer struggling against him, Dracula turned her so Alucard could see her fully. Alucard sighed that true to his randy nature, Dracula had incarnated her naked. At least his father had given her the long waves of black hair falling to her knees to conceal her. Not that Bat seemed too concerned about concealing herself now that the heart of her wish was revealed...stripped bare, so to speak. Dracula had given her pure white, almost translucent skin to contrast with her dark hair. Alucard took a step nearer. Bat's eyes widened and her distress darkened their lovely purple hue, even as a red blush bloomed on her...well, everywhere. 

"Lord Dracula!" Death shifted uncomfortably. 

"Oh, you are such a prude!" Dracula exclaimed. "Honestly! Is this why you insist on burial shrouds and such?!" He opened the clasp, whirled his cloak off and placed it on Bat's narrow shoulders. Her hands came up instinctively to grasp and close the cloak around her. 

The noises coming from her were the inarticulate ravings of a celeste. Obviously she was giving voice to her distress, but the sounds she made were so purely beautiful that Alucard found himself smiling. 

"Oh, I had better take care of that!" Dracula started. He turned Bat around to face him, gazed compellingly into her eyes, tipped her unprotesting chin up with one finger and kissed... 

...her forehead. He released his hypnotic compulsion and caught the little hand that reached out to strike him again. 

"Only Master Bat!" her angelic tones said. "No one else should touch me! Oh?!" She started in surprise that she now had the power of human speech. 

"Why?! Why did you do this to me?!" she demanded, looking up at Dracula as tears welled in her eyes. 

"You got to see me as a bat, as I once promised you would," Dracula told her. "I wanted to see you as a dhampir. It is your secret wish after all, is it not? To be like you 'Master Bat' in his human form, just once? So I granted it. For the next twenty-four hours, you, my dear, are a dhampir just like him." 

"It was my secret," Bat dropped her head, hiding her face in her long hair. "You never should have found it. You never should have made it true...in front of him. Now he will..." She slumped to the ground and huddled in Dracula's cloak as she once would have huddled in her wings. 

"I can't even fly away. I feel so strange. My wish...is made a nightmare! Master Bat will...hate me now..." 

Her words galvanized Alucard out of the spell that her lovely voice wove around him. How endearingly silly she was! Hate her?! That was the furthest thing from reality! 

He knelt next to her and placed his arm around her shoulders. Her shoulders shook under him and Alucard realized that true to the human female form his father forced her to wear, she was crying in her distress. She'd been through so much! For her to think that he could ever hate her...she wasn't thinking clearly. How could he tell her...? 

Alucard smiled to himself. He had a sudden, powerful image of Fairy floating before him, telling him that Bat didn't need words from him now. Fairy was actually floating several feet away, just as shocked at what had happened to Bat as he was, but Alucard thought it is something Fairy _would_ tell him. He pulled Bat fully into his arms, cradled her against his chest and just let her cry. He held her and stroked through her silky hair. He crooned softly and squeezed her shoulders from time to time, showing her with his gentle touches and supportive presence that he could never hate her, no matter what. He saved his words for later, when she would be calm enough to hear them. 

She cried herself out finally and sighed. Alucard smiled that she didn't try to leave his arms and stood up, bringing her with him. 

Alucard stared at the beautiful dhampir his father had made of Bat to grant her secret wish. He knew he loved Bat. He admitted to himself that no matter how odd it seemed, he loved HER, not the form she was wearing. He pondered that perhaps he would fall in love with her even more, when she was in the vampire bat form that was natural to her now. He felt weak in the knees that she would be, had been, returned to him. His father had told him the price to bring that miracle about was that Alucard would have to fight him still in Castlevania. 

It was an odd forfeit to demand, though Alucard felt he understood Dracula better than ever before. He wondered if, when the time came, he could bring himself to fight his father. Strange that he learned more about Dracula because of his familiar. And there was Bat's forfeit too...Alucard vowed silently to make sure her forfeit wasn't a bad thing at all! 

"I'll tell you now what I discovered, when I thought I had lost you," Alucard began in a soft voice, releasing the words he longed to utter now that she was receptive to them. She snuggled and nestled against him willingly, instinctively, just as she had done when she was still just a mortal natural bat and he told her to trust him for the first time. She might be wearing the form of a dhampir, but she still was, and would always be, his beloved Bat. "I regret that the first time I tell you this, it is not to you in your own form, in the language that we share." 

"But I promise tomorrow I will tell this to you again." Bat locked her gaze on Alucard's eyes, paying rapt attention to his words. 

He'd never been more aware of his own heartbeat or the blood rushing through him. Even the bloodlust didn't make him feel this powerfully alive. One part of his mind realized this might be why Dracula had loved so many women and sired so many children. True love as a antidote to the bloodlust? Or, not quite an antidote, perhaps just something more powerful to help keep it at bay. Alucard had learned as he followed eeD through the dimensions, that once Dracula had found a wife, he lived quietly and calmly with her until something riled up the people around him. Alucard wondered what would happen if Dracula were allowed to love a woman in peace. But... 

Her! The soft lavender eyes gazing so ardently up at him. He could see Bat's own bright and curious nature in their sparkle. The way she loved him, the way she trusted him, the way... 

...the way she was pressing herself so tightly against him! She was probably frightened, but the way she felt in his arms... Maybe it was wrong of him to consider it, but Dracula said she would be this way, a dhampir like him, for only twenty-four hours, that tomorrow she would become again the vampire bat she truly was. Tender feelings might fill his heart, powerful feelings might surge in his blood, but a different feeling surging in a different place insistently demanded release. Maybe it was wrong of him to consider it. She wouldn't understand. He set his will and pushed the feeling away. He'd never distress Bat with things she couldn't understand! 

Alucard was sure Bat would understand his other feeling though. She'd already shown him in thousands of ways how she felt about him. He never thought he'd ever return the emotion shining so brightly in her eyes. He'd set his will against ever feeling it, toward anyone. For some reason, toward her, that will had proven too weak to resist. Alucard was glad for that fact. 

"I wish I could say your true name to you now. You will have to wait to hear me say this the way I wish I could. But I can deny it no longer. Bat...I love you." 

She blinked up at him at that. Her lovely purple eyes widened in shock. She stopped breathing while she stared at his eyes, struggling to assimilate all that he had just told her in those last three simple words. Her wish didn't disgust him?! He did...did he just say...did he actually mean...? 

Bat smiled. Not a smile of triumph, just a smile of simple pleasure, as if everything had finally fallen into place. 

"I'll get to say it to you in your own language first!" she smiled luminously, yet impishly, up at him. "Master Bat, I love you." 

He laughed, as she intended, that she had used her name for him, rather than the name he asked her to use. The little minx! She knew how important true names were! Would he never hear those wonderful words coupled, made one with his name in one breath as he wished they could couple, making his body one with hers? 

...! Oh, yes. That was definitely the desire talking! 

She twisted in his arms pressing so close that Alucard wondered if perhaps she was trying to embrace his backbone. The heavy lock of shiny black hair along her cheek shifted and slid off her shoulder, baring her neck and clavicle to his avid gaze. She pressed her shoulder and chest against his, mutely letting him feel the heat that simply being held by him sparked in her. 

"Alucard." Just that. Just his name. Her beautiful voice put all of her longing into the syllables of his name. 

"Tonight is short. We will have this chance, to share our love, just once." She stepped out of his embrace, tipped her head back and dropped her hold on Dracula's cloak, inviting Alucard to gaze upon her, instinctively knowing that it would ignite him. She looked upon him with the simple, innocent directness of the animal nature she had been born with. Her gaze was hungry and hot as she raked it from his feet, up over the breeches that hid none of his interest in her, over his arms, chest, shoulders and into his face. Her naked desire darkened her eyes, but under and through all the wild animal attraction, he could see she still felt the soft, unbreakable ardor that meant this night, if they did indeed consummate the desire they both shared, was actually a sacred meeting of two hearts, creating a single love. 

"Alucard," this time, her voice was the essence of adoring softness. "I love you." 

Should he? Would it be right for him to take the advantage Dracula so blatantly, obviously wanted him to take with Bat? Would it break his vow? Had he broken his vow already by telling her that he loved her? Desire, honor, vows, true love, sacred trust...all of it, all the forces that made up his being whirled about restlessly in him. What should he do?! 

All of a sudden, a passage in the book D had loaned him rose to the surface of his mind. 

_ "We are but transient visitors poised on the edge of darkness. Claim your happiness whenever you find it. As the humans say, 'Seize the day.' You never know when an opportunity will be presented just once."_

"...just once..." Alucard said it aloud, looking into Dracula's eyes. Dracula nodded solemnly. "Seize the day!" Alucard told himself firmly. Dracula's eyes widened in surprise, before he smiled in understanding. 

"Bat...sweetheart..." Alucard turned to look down at her again, wondering how to ask her for permission to do what he longed to do. She pulled him down and herself up enough to seize the moment herself and give him the sweetest, yet most carnal kiss. 

"Enough talk!" she demanded as she released him. "Time is so short!" She pressed herself into his side again. "Won't you make me yours? Or do you not love me enough?" 

Alucard laughed in surprise. "I'll show you just how much I love you!" he threatened playfully. 

"Lord Dracula..." Death pleaded. "Not here! I couldn't take it!" 

Dracula waved his hand and Alucard, with Bat still held in his arms and plastered to his side, disappeared. 

"To spare you, old friend!" 

"You've sent them...where?" Fairy finally dared to approach. 

"Oh! I should have sent you with!" Dracula realized. 

Fairy shook her head emphatically. "No! I have no need to witness what they are doing!" Dracula laughed. 

"I sent them to one of the places I like to take the women I love the best. It's...appropriate for how they were behaving!" 

"As for you," Dracula cupped his chin. His eyes sparkled at Fairy. Though he had been so benevolent toward her friend Bat, Fairy found herself fearing the Lord of All Vampires again. 

"Good! You should fear me!" Dracula told her. "When Castlevania rises, I will indeed try to kill your master. Remember that, and make certain he does too!" Dracula warned her. "But for now, so you keep that fear intact, I think it best that you not be around me too much. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all." 

Dracula waved his hand again. Fairy disappeared. 

"You sent her back to the familiars' dimension?" Death guessed. 

"No. I sent her to trouble D for a bit. She teases him unmercifully!" 

Death laughed. "Good! Anything you can do to make him uncomfortable!" 

"You're still upset at him about that tooth of yours?!" Dracula demanded, stooping to retrieve his cloak from where it had been abandoned by Bat. 

Death growled. 

-------------   
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get! 

stargarde@stargarde.com 


	5. Chapter Five

**Just Once - Chapter Five**

**"We are but transient visitors poised on the edge of darkness. Claim your happiness whenever you find it. As the humans say, 'Seize the day.' You never know when an opportunity will be presented just once." from The Book of Blood, Teachings of the Ancient God**

Dracula sat on Death's throne of bone and waved his hand. Fairy appeared, floating in the air. 

"Oh!" she exclaimed, startled, to see that she was in Death's crypt again. She looked about wildly, but except for Dracula and Death, she was the only one here. 

"Uhm...pardon me? Sir?" 

"Yes?" Dracula grinned evilly at her. 

"I could just leave, if that would be okay with you..." she stammered. 

"It isn't. You saw the beginning of this. It pleases me for you to witness the end." 

"Oh," Fairy responded in a low voice. "Okay...I guess." 

Dracula waited, to let her sweat a little. 

"Oh!" she exclaimed again. Her gossamer wings blurred as she dashed toward Death. "Here! I found this is D's things!" She dropped something white into the air above Death. 

"My tooth!" Death reached up and deftly trapped it in his bony grasp. 

"Would you please, if it's okay with you, perhaps, not be too mad at D any longer, uhm...Lord Death?" Fairy asked hesitantly. "I know you were furious at him before and it just seems as though you might still be upset at him..." 

Death turned his head and looked at her with eerie glowing sockets. He sighed. 

"If you promise me one thing," he agreed. 

"Wh, what is it?" 

"You have to tease him for me. If I know you are teasing him...I'll stop being angry at him." 

Fairy smiled and bowed. 

A second wave of Dracula's hand brought Alucard and Bat back. Predictably, Alucard's arms were wrapped around Bat. Not so predictably, Bat wore a lovely, purple silk dress. 

"Good evening," Dracula greeted archly. "I trust it has been a good day?" 

Alucard grinned. 

"It was...satisfactory." 

Dracula laughed. "But it is time to restore things to the way they should be." 

"I know. Bat knows," Alucard told him. He looked down into Bat's face again. "Thank you, Father, for making her so beautiful as a dhampir," Alucard said. 

Dracula raised his eyebrows at that. "I didn't. That is how she would appear if she'd been born a dhampir. Just as you appear handsome in your bat form, she appeared beautiful in her dhampir one." 

"Of course, you aren't as handsome as a bat as I am!" Dracula declared arrogantly. He shifted to his vampire bat form and flew over toward Alucard. 

Bat jumped out from under Alucard's arm and waved her hands about wildly. 

"Shoo! Shoo! Stay away from Master Bat!" she cried out. One of her flailing arms struck Dracula, sending him on an uncontrolled tumble through the air. 

He smacked into the wall, slid down and transformed back. Alucard dashed over to his side. 

His father was crumpled up against the wall, twitching. Alucard worried that Dracula might have been hurt. His own worry gave him pause. He was concerned..._for_ Dracula?! Another worry woven into that was that his father would be furious at Bat for what happened. Alucard should have realized Bat would react this way, seeing another bat flying toward her Master Bat. He should have stopped her. He hoped that she wouldn't have to pay the ultimate price for striking Dracula. 

"Father! Father, I'm so sorry! I should have known! I should have kept a tighter hold on Bat!" Alucard cried aloud. 

"Remember that in Castlevania you will still have to defeat me," Dracula observed accepting Alucard's hand to stand up again. "Though it's pleasing you are concerned!" 

"Actually, it's funny that she is so jealous!" Dracula laughed. "This has been such fun! But, it is time things went back to normal." 

"Meaning?" Bat turned toward Alucard. 

"Meaning it's time for you to become a bat again," Dracula said from behind her. 

"I want that...I miss being able to fly!" Bat smiled up at Alucard. "Before he changes me back, there's just one thing..." 

"What is it?" Alucard asked her gently, taking her into his arms. Her arms automatically wrapped around him. 

"Would you...can I see you, Master Bat, with these eyes?" she asked shyly. 

Alucard smiled down on her. Even though for one day she had shared the form of a dhampir with him, he knew she loved his bat form the best. He shimmered into it in her arms. 

"Ohhhhhh!" 

"You are so _cute_, Master Bat!" Bat enthused, stroking his wings, petting his head, all the while half-hugging him in her arms. "I never realized how small you are!" 

"You aren't going to hit me again, if I come near, are you?" Dracula asked as he approached. He reached out a hand and stroked Alucard's bat head himself. 

"N,No, sir. I'm sorry!" 

"Eh, I understand the reason for it. It is good that you are so protective of Alucard. Especially against me. Do you know what he is saying to you?" 

"Saying? No, he isn't saying anything," Bat replied in confusion. 

"Pity you can't hear it. He's saying that he loves you and he's using your real name," Dracula told her. 

"He is?! You are?!" Bat smothered Alucard in her delighted hug. "Oh, Master Bat, you are so _darling_!" 

"Hey! Take it easy, Bat! You don't want to squish him!" Dracula protested, laughing. "Are you ready to hear it for yourself?" Dracula asked. 

Alucard resumed his dhampir form at that. He was torn! He knew Bat, despite her initial misgivings, had enjoyed the granting of her 'secret wish', but he also knew she was eager to be his bat familiar again. He had enjoyed her brief time as a dhampir too, very much, but part of him wouldn't really believe Bat was restored to him until he saw it for himself. 

"Oh." Bat's shoulders slumped in the elegant dress she wore. She straightened them again. "I guess...it is for the best." 

"What are you sad about?" Dracula asked. 

"I miss being myself. I know that Master Bat is fond of me that way." Bat turned toward Alucard. "I do know that you care for me, as a bat. But, I know you love this..." Bat indicated herself now. 

"I love you, Bat, not the form you wear," Alucard told her simply. 

Death gagged in the corner. "Are you people trying to _kill_ me?!" 

Ignoring Death's histrionics, Bat looked up into Alucard's eyes. "Really?" 

"Really," Alucard promised. "But, you don't mind if I share a kiss with you, one last time?" 

Bat shyly shook her head. Alucard settled her comfortably in his arms, leaned down and softly kissed her. He had to teach her a lot of things in the past twenty-four hours, how to walk, how to dress, how to...express her love. Teaching her how to clean herself by sharing a bath with her made him appreciate his dhampir stamina more than ever before. Kissing was one thing she just knew all on her own. 

He loved her. Even if she were just a soul in a globe, he'd still love her. The dhampir Dracula had made of her was beautiful, and Alucard would readily admit he loved that expression of her soul, but he too missed the attentive, affectionate Bat. He missed her soft black wings. He missed her glowing red eyes. He missed how she hovered as near as she could without getting in his way. He missed...Bat. Intensely. It was how she was supposed to be. It was who she was. It was time. 

Alucard eased back from their final kiss. 

"Bat, come here," Dracula commanded. Bat smiled and stepped out of Alucard's embrace, reaching back with one hand to touch Alucard for as long as possible as she obeyed. She shivered as she stood, alone, before the Lord of All Vampires. 

"Back into life, back to the way you are supposed to be!" Dracula lifted his hands and blew across his flattened palms. A fine black dust swept over and around Bat, shrinking her, turning her arms back into wings and darkening the white human skin into the soft black fur of a vampire bat. The purple silk dress pooled on the floor. 

Bat, a vampire bat once more, dashed over and thoroughly tangled herself in Alucard's hair. He laughed while complaining that he hadn't even a moment to see her properly before she did that. 

Dracula stood off to one side watching Bat's playful, affectionate antics. 

"She has no dignity at all," Fairy observed, floating next to Dracula. 

"That's okay. Alucard has enough dignity for the both of them," Dracula replied. "He needs her impulsiveness." 

"Lord Dracula...the dust you used to transform her was actually the dust of Bat's body, wasn't it?" Fairy asked. 

Dracula nodded. 

"I see. So you didn't actually..." 

Suddenly she wasn't in the chamber any longer. She was in a place that somehow made Death's Crypt seem downright cozy. Dracula, much more scary than she'd ever seen him, reached out and seized her in his hands. He turned her over and pulled on her wings until she cried out. 

"Remember this, over-observant little Fairy," Dracula advised her in a cold, menacing voice. "I promise you the perfection of this pain if you should breathe a single word or give the merest hint of what you know. You will never fly again, if you reveal my secret. Do we have an understanding?" 

Unable to speak, Fairy simply nodded. 

"Good," Dracula said. He let go of her wings, stroked one finger between them to soothe the pain, but seal their pact, and released her. Death's Crypt materialized around them once again. Still trying to untangle the playfully resistant Bat from his hair, Alucard hadn't even noticed Dracula and Fairy had been gone. Fairy shivered. 

"You've nothing to worry about from me if you keep my secret," Dracula told her serenely. 

Fairy was distressed. There was no one she could talk to about this! She'd have to keep not only Dracula's secret, but also the burden that she even _had_ the secret, from everyone! Cursing herself for her observant nature, Fairy spied the pretty, neglected dress Bat had been wearing crumpled on the floor. To distract herself, she flew over, gathered it up, and offered it to Death. 

"I've got no use for that!" he snapped at her, upset at the joy enlivening his Crypt. Reluctantly she approached Dracula with it. She probably should have gone to him first, as it had been borrowed from whatever amorous retreat he had sent Alucard and Bat to, but Fairy wanted to keep as much distance as possible between herself and Alucard's father. Another session of one-on-one with the Lord of All Vampires would probably kill her! 

"Keep it, for now," he told her. Fairy sighed as she used a slight magic to shrink the dress and put it in her tiny pack. 

She looked up from settling the pack against her hip to see Bat's eyes glowing a soft red at her from just a foot away. 

"Bat!" Fairy reached out and impulsively hugged Bat around her neck, tumbling both of them from the air. A quick catch by Alucard saved them from crashing to the floor. He smiled benevolently down into his cupped hands at the happy reunion of his familiars. 

"I'm so glad, so very, very glad you are all right!" Fairy told her friend. She dashed happy tears from her eyes. 

"OUT!" Death shouted. "I've had ENOUGH! All of you, out of my Crypt!" 

Dracula raised one hand. 

"Father..." Alucard started. He wanted to let Dracula know how much he appreciated what his father had done for him, returning Bat to him unharmed. 

"Someday, when Castlevania is no more, perhaps we can talk of it," Dracula said as he waved his hand. Only Death remained in the Crypt with him. 

"Now that they are finally gone, do you want to tell me what the hell that was all about?! Have you completely lost your mind?!" Death demanded. "I wondered when you let Alucard sire Bat, but I thought you had some kind of plan about that. Now, I have no idea at all! Have you gone soft on me?!" 

"I've always been soft where my children are concerned," Dracula commented. 

"Harumph," Death replied in disgust. Dracula resumed his place on Death's throne. 

"But you are right," he admitted. "There is a purpose to everything I've done. Not to worry! Though I will admit there was a bit, the tiniest, merest bit of simply wanting to do something (ugh!) nice for Alucard, I have selfish reasons for giving him Galatea." 

"'Galatea'? Oh, you mean Bat?" 

"Yes," Dracula smiled. "Her name came to me when you taunted Alucard about being Pygmalion. Galatea is a fitting name for her now, given what I have done to her." 

"I see. So, Bat didn't... You didn't..." Death began. Dracula smirked and held one finger over his lips while he shook his head. 

"It's important that I be on Alucard's good side now," he admitted, growing abruptly serious again. "Events are transpiring...leading to a conclusion that is most inimical to me. Only Alucard has the power to stop it. So you see...though I appeared to be kind and generous with Galatea...Bat, I had a selfish, ulterior motive all along. For if Alucard fails, or, worse yet, decides to permit this thing to happen, you will have to do something that in a million eons you would never dream." Dracula looked up and smiled a sad, tight smile into the glowing eye sockets of his oldest friend. 

"You will have to claim my soul." 

"I...see." Death pondered this startling, universe-shaking information. Still... 

"You have become soft though," he teased in a sepulchral voice. "You practically had little pink hearts floating all around my Crypt!" he complained. "As it is, you DID have a fairy flitting in here! I'm going to have to fumigate I'm sure..." 

Dracula smiled. He'd been candid when he said he was fond of his children. All of them. Though some made him out to be only a cold-blooded monster, Death was one of the few beings who was aware that Dracula honestly did care for his children. Death also knew that D and Alucard both, though they made choices that were inscrutable to Dracula, had not only their father's affection, but his respect as well. 

"I've always been so harsh to him..." Dracula mused. "I wonder if what I've done for Galatea is enough?" 

"He cares for you," Death told Dracula simply. 

"Did you know he's been reading my book?" Dracula asked out of the blue. 

"Book? Which one? You've written so many..." 

Dracula smiled at the left-handed compliment. "One of the first ones...The Book of Blood. The one I wrote in D's dimension." 

"That old thing?!" 

Dracula smiled. He knew that despite Death's disdainful attitude, Death particularly liked that book. It contained the sacred writings for the vampires in D's dimension. Death especially liked the chapters about how to consolidate power, summon mutants, raise castles...such vampiric activity, and what D did to suppress it, kept him happily busy. 

"'Just once...'" Dracula muttered aloud. 

"What?" Death asked. 

"The Book of Blood," Dracula held out his hand imperiously. 

"What are you going to do?" 

"Add a new line. Give me the book, now!" 

Death sighed and the book appeared in his skeletal hands. Dracula decisively opened it to the last written page, turned it to invoke a blank page, pulled a quill out of his cloak and swiftly scribbled in his elegant hand on the new page. 

"There!" 

Death turned the book around to read what Dracula had written. 

"**'Just once is never enough.'**?" 

"You do realize this book codifies the myth in D's reality?!" Death was shocked. 

"Ah...who even reads it now anyway?" Dracula scoffed. 

"Alucard does." Death grinned slyly. 

"Well, I hope he figures out what I've done to his 'Bat' before he reads it in some musty old tome!" Dracula laughed. "If he doesn't, he's no son of mine!" 

~end~ -------------   
Author's notes - 

Pygmalion and Galatea is one of my favorite romantic Greek Myths. And yes...the conclusion that can be made from the fact that Dracula has named Bat 'Galatea' is one hundred percent correct! ^_~ 

Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get! 

stargarde@stargarde.com   



End file.
